Prelude
by Janieshi
Summary: "He might have been distant and emotionally unavailable, but he wasn't heartless. He loved me, in his own way." In which Roy and Riza reminisce about their youth. Post-manga, definite spoilers. Royai, of course! Rated T for a bad word or two.


**Prelude**

* * *

**Dedicated to all the fathers out there for whom those sweet and mushy father's day cards are written, and especially to my own father, who has never been too tired or too busy for his daughters. **

* * *

He'd had no idea that she'd kept the old place.

Although Berthold Hawkeye had allowed things to fall into disrepair after his wife had passed, his daughter Riza had discovered after his death that their house was paid off, and that it had been left to her free and clear. He'd had quite a bit of money squirreled away, in fact, and she could've lived comfortably (if a bit frugally) on the inheritance, without even taking the value of the property into account. But instead, she had followed her late father's apprentice into military service.

Mustang had never realized...of course, he knew it had been because of his naive ideals that Riza had hit upon the _military_, but he'd always thought that she'd needed to choose some sort of profession in order to survive, once her father was gone. For some reason, he'd always just assumed that Hawkeye had sold what she could, paid off the debts and never looked back; severed ties and left her old life behind in order to pursue her chosen career. And so, when she casually asked him one weekend whether he wanted to tag along to the old country estate, to see if any of her father's things would be useful to him, he was floored.

And that was before he'd seen the house again.

She'd taken far better care of it in these past few years than her father ever had. All of the things Berthold had neglected-the peeling paint, the leaky roof with the missing shingles, the rickety wraparound porch, the termite-eaten wood, the pathetic excuse for a garden-it had all been repaired, restored, and lovingly tended.

"I'm sorry about all the dust," she said, as the once-squeaky front door opened silently on well-oiled hinges. "I don't trust anyone else to come in and clean with all of Father's old books lying about. Some of them are rather valuable, I believe." She led the way down the dim hallway to the living room, where she opened a window. As the cool breeze stirred the stale air around them, Mustang let out a contented sigh.

"I'm still in shock," he admitted softly. "I had no idea you'd been doing all of this….the place looks amazing." She shrugged, a tiny smile playing on her lips.

"Thank you." She turned away from the window to meet his eyes. "I wasn't able to start working on it until after the war. But I like to think my mother would have been pleased to see what I've done," she said, a little wistfully. "My grandfather told me once that she'd really loved this house. After she was gone, my father didn't seem to notice anything outside the four walls of his study." He remembered that only too well.

"I think the place could've fallen down during the night and he wouldn't have noticed," he joked weakly.

"I always hated that I couldn't take care of everything back then," her eyes clouded, and she traced a finger across the windowsill, leaving a shining trail in the dust. Although Riza had managed to keep the interior of the house sparkling clean when she was only a girl, she'd been too young and too inexperienced to take care of the exterior. It had been hard on her to watch, completely helpless, as her home crumbled around her. But she'd never complained about it, not once. She had always been the type to suffer in silence, to endure and soldier on even when her circumstances were bleak. The fact that she was even mentioning that it had bothered her once was something of a surprise to him. She was always so careful to conceal her feelings about her childhood, especially from him.

"And here I was always just impressed that you managed all the housework alone, without any siblings, or your mother, or a housemaid to help," was all he managed in reply. Too clumsy for this topic, he knew, and not even close to helpful.

She smiled faintly but didn't respond, instead looking around the room with the calculating stare he had come to associate with impending paperwork.

"Speaking of which…you know where the study is, sir. Go on ahead; I'm going to tidy up a bit and make these rooms habitable so that we can stay the night."

"Let me help," he protested, shrugging out of his jacket. "It's not like I'm really a guest." Plus, he'd missed her bossing him around for these past few months, although he wasn't about to admit that. He didn't really _need_ to-she already knew as much without him having to come right out and say so. Just as he knew she'd missed being around to boss him.

And so she allowed him to help her dust and sweep. But then she shooed him into the study, insisting that she would rather do the rest on her own. He protested only half-heartedly, itching to explore his old teacher's library again, to breathe in the familiar scent of lemon oil and old books. She just laughed and took the armful of clean linen away from him before disappearing upstairs, leaving him alone to reacquaint himself with the library.

He didn't come back out again until dusk, and then only because the crick in his neck and the hollow feeling in his stomach finally intruded on his conscious mind. He was mildly surprised that Hawkeye hadn't come in to check on him at some point. But then, she'd never really been comfortable in Berthold's study, preferring to read in the open air, and most often up a tree. Ironic, really, that she'd ended up becoming a sniper, when you considered all the time she'd spent in high places as a child.

Riza was standing in the kitchen when he found her, with her back to the door, and something that smelled delicious simmering on the stove. She didn't turn around or otherwise acknowledge his presence, so he assumed (correctly) that she had not heard him approach. Roy paused in the doorway, considering, and decided to take this rare opportunity to study her unreservedly. Framed by the kitchen window that she was currently staring out of, she made a very pretty picture. Over her dress, she was wearing a frilly white apron, which he suspected had been her mother's, and her blonde hair was soft and loose around her shoulders. Dressed like that, she certainly didn't look like a talented sniper fully trained in combat, but rather like an innocent housewife with nothing more pressing on her mind than how many quarts of milk she needed to buy at the market. A wave of nostalgia rushed over him when he realized that she was standing in the exact same spot that she had been when he'd first talked to her alone.

Back then, he'd frightened her unintentionally, walking up behind her and speaking when she'd thought that she was alone. She'd started like a wild animal, and spilled an entire cup of tea down her white dress. There had been terror and mistrust in her eyes, and he'd been sure she hated him.

These days, however, her senses were honed from years of military training. He saw the moment she became aware of his gaze, when her body tensed very slightly and she shifted her weight to the balls of her feet. He had no doubt that even here, in this peaceful place, there was more than one weapon concealed under her civilian clothing. And he almost hoped that someone would try to break in, or something, just so he could see her in action. She spoke without turning around.

"Roy, come over here, quietly. And look," she said softly, slightly breathless. He moved cautiously to stand behind her. Outside of the window, in an orchard he'd never realized existed underneath all of the wild growth that had been there in his youth, there were two deer. Delicate and graceful, the animals nibbled daintily at the tender spring grass between a pair of gnarled old fig trees. In the dusky twilight, their dun colored coats looked almost silver. Something about the fragility of their steps and the mist rising from the dewy grass around them made it seem as though the pretty creatures were not of this world. They might have just stepped out of the pages of a fairy tale.

"Would you look at that," he breathed, amused. Personally, he was far more interested in Riza than in the deer. Standing beside her, with his shoulder touching hers, he watched her face while she watched the deer. Her eyes were soft, shining, and her lips were slightly parted, the corners of her mouth upturned in an indulgent smile. It was strangely exhilarating, being allowed to witness this gentle and kind-hearted side that Hawkeye took such pains to hide under her tough-as-nails exterior. Would their teammates ever believe that the stoic and professional Lieutenant had a soft spot for animals, for beautiful things?

"Aren't they lovely?" she murmured.

"Enchanting," he agreed, without taking his eyes off of her face. And the minutes ticked by in comfortable silence.

"Sir, what are you staring at?" Roy blinked, and found himself pinned by a pair of sharp brown eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was staring...I was just admiring the view," he grinned.

This reply made her flush, and she turned away quickly to hide her pink cheeks. Did he know? Had he ever noticed that he was the only one who could make her blush? She wouldn't be surprised if he'd figured it out over the years he'd known her. He'd been the first one who truly _saw_ her, after all. The only one who could break through her walls without even trying. How had that happened, again?

* * *

I spent my life becoming invisible.

It wasn't a conscious effort, at first. But it seemed to make my father… happier, somehow. Although "happy" isn't quite the right word for it. He just seemed to be more _at_ _ease_ when I wasn't intruding myself on his notice. Honestly, I think that he didn't know what to do with me, after my mother died. My presence in our home, with my face that looked so much like hers, only distressed him. His wants, his desires, were more important to me than my own need to be noticed and tended to. So I learned to speak softly, to walk without making any noise, and to take care of myself insofar as I was physically capable: all for his sake. I understand now, that I colluded with him to make myself disappear. I suppose this is an unhealthy attitude to take to one's own father. But back then…I decided that if my being invisible made him happy, then I didn't mind it.

And after the first student came, I wanted very much to be invisible for real.

I was young, vulnerable, motherless: I must have seemed like an easy target. He was hardly more than a boy, himself, but he was bigger than I was, and he assumed that my physical weakness had a mental correlation. He was shocked to find that a few bruises and a fat lip yielded no information. Although I cried bitterly as I bled, I refused to turn traitor. Not for him, and not for the ones that came afterwards.

I soon learned to recognize the brutish type by glint in their eyes, the cadence of their voices, the little swagger in their walk. These signs meant I'd better find a damn good hiding place unless I wanted to clean my own blood out of my clothes and hide the bruises with mother's makeup when I had to go into the village.

Those that weren't outright bullies usually employed other tactics to gather information. They offered me little presents, flowers or sweets, paired with feigned kindness—sugar coated words and empty promises. I still don't know quite _how_ I always knew, but something deep in my gut, some kind of sixth sense, told me they were insincere. Maybe it was in their eyes, which were cold and calculating behind those charming smiles and gentle words. Whatever it was, I knew. And I hardened my heart.

It's funny, now that I think about it. Even if I had broken down and told all I knew, it would not have helped them. They all believed that as his child, I had access to the forbidden knowledge my father withheld. I certainly could've told them which books my father spent the most time poring over, and where he kept his notebooks of carefully coded notes. But my father had not yet completed his research in those days, so his notes wouldn't have given them the clear-cut answers they sought. And they hadn't the knowledge or experience to make use of those answers if they'd had them anyway…they were looking for shortcuts in a science where there are none. All of the wheedling, threatening, and bleeding—it was all for _nothing_.

As soon as my father realized what was going on, he threw those young men out. Every single time. He was no man's fool: though he was often lost in his own world, he knew what went on under his own roof. And he might have been distant and emotionally unavailable, but he wasn't heartless. He loved me, in his own way. When he asked them to go, he always said it was because they didn't have the talent to succeed. And there were probably a few for whom this was really true.

I'm not entirely sure, but I wonder now whether my endurance, my silent and unwavering loyalty in the face of that bullying, was the deciding factor for my father. Whether that was the real reason why he did what he did later—when he entrusted all of his secrets, his _real_ ones, to the flesh and blood of his flesh and blood.

Given the intimidation, the lies, and the pain that I suffered through, maintaining my invisibility became paramount. Simply being quiet and unobtrusive was no longer enough. I moved through my own home like a cat on silent feet, melting into the background whenever someone looked my way. I found hiding places that I could use whenever there was a boarder at the house: the barn loft, the overgrown honeysuckle arbor behind the kitchen gardens, the window seat in my mother's old sitting room...places no one else bothered to go. I learned to climb trees, where I could perch among all that cool leafy green and read in peace, safely hidden from view. I became so adept at being invisible, that for a few of the students, I was nothing more than small footsteps echoing down the hallway late at night, and meals left out at regular intervals. A ghost.

And then Roy Mustang turned up on our doorstep.

He was the first person to actually look at me, to see _me_. He saw me as a person and not as a means to an end or a source of information or a victim to be used for sadistic entertainment. When I opened the door and he smiled at me, I immediately placed him in the camp of the charmers, the ones who tried to use their good looks to get me to spill my father's secrets. But then he was so polite, so..._naively_ sweet to me. He seemed lonely, even. I didn't know what to make of it. And that first weekend, when he snuck up on me...I'll admit that at first I was terrified, cornered in the kitchen, with his body blocking my only means of escape, unless I jumped out the window. It had been a while since I'd been so careless as to allow an adversary to cut off my escape routes. I was completely at his mercy. But then he was so flustered when he saw that I'd spilled tea all over myself. He was so nervous and clumsy with his attempts to help me, I just couldn't help myself. I let down my guard, just a tiny bit. My mask slipped, and I even talked to him.

By the time I realized what I'd done, it was too late. But he didn't take advantage of the opening he'd gained, didn't press me like so many of the others had done. I reserved judgment, thinking that perhaps he was particularly clever and just biding his time. Waiting until I trusted him a bit more before trying to trick information out of me.

But every time I told myself to be firm, to be cold...the look on his face melted my resolve. He always looked so confused and chagrined when I withdrew, like he thought he had done something wrong or offended me somehow. It took me a long time to realize that he just wanted to be friends. The very concept was so foreign to me, an isolated child who was home schooled by an alchemist. A motherless only child with only her half-mad recluse of a father for company; two people living alone in a house meant to be filled with life and laughter. It wasn't until I sprained an ankle that I accepted the idea of friendship with Roy Mustang. That idiot ended up carrying me in his arms over five miles to get to a doctor. And once it had been treated, after we were back home, he kept me company to taake my mind off the pain. He sat up and read to me until I fell asleep. When I woke the next morning, there he still was, curled up like a cat in the chair next to my bed. He even helped me with the chores until I could get around again on my own. That's what friends are for, he told me, smiling from the depths of those dark eyes of his.

My father knew right away that something was different about this student. His eyes smouldered when they met mine, and I often noticed him studying his pupil, calculating, appraising. Waiting. One night, after Roy had been with us for quite some time, my father called me into his study. He confessed to me that he had been wondering lately whether this child, this teenage boy, might be the one he had been looking for. The one to whom his research could eventually be entrusted. All I said was that I hoped so, but the look my father gave me then…I have never forgotten it. It was what I imagine Hughes's face would have looked like if he had been alive to see Elicia on her wedding day. It was like I had turned on a light in side of him. I never, before or since, witnessed such radiant joy on my father's face.

I didn't realize what I had done, not yet. Right there, with those three words, I had tied our fates together with an unbreakable bond. My approval of Roy, my hope for his success—I chose my father's successor, just as much as my father did. Roy likes to blame himself for the manner in which my father passed on his life's research, as though he could have somehow prevented it. I'm not sure whether he imagines that my father would have just told him his secrets if he had been more serious or less inclined to the idea of becoming a State Alchemist, or whether he just thinks he could have spared me the pain and the burden by physically preventing my father from branding my skin, riding in like some hero to rescue the damsel in distress…but in truth, it was my own fault. My father gave me a choice. And I made it.

When the tattoo was put into place…it really did hurt like hell. Afterward, my father rested his hand on my head while I tried to stifle my sobs, and I swear I felt his tears splashing onto my bare skin. We never spoke of it again after that night. He never told me to be careful who I trusted, or that I must not show anyone—he knew he didn't have to. I'd already proven my loyalty.

I know, from the marrow in my bones down to my very soul, that my father would never have told anyone that I had his research notes unless he was sure that that person cared for me. Unless he was sure that that person would make sure I was taken care of after he was gone. And out of all of his students, all of the boys who had passed through our lives and stayed in our home, something about Roy had convinced us both that he was the one. I trusted him. And so my father trusted him.

Before Roy came to us on that last night, when my father lay on what we didn't yet know was to be his death bed, I had been sitting with him. I read aloud, more to comfort myself than him, since he didn't seem to be listening. He stopped me mid-sentence at one point, reached out to grip my arm with one gnarled hand. His eyes were wild, blazing, and he let his hand slide down my arm from bicep to wrist in an almost-caress. I was half-terrified, half-exhilarated. Such a simple, gentle touch—but it was more affection that he had shown to me in years. I didn't know what to do. With that fragile hand gripping my wrist, he whispered earnestly in a hoarse voice.

"He's a good man. Hardworking and sincere. Naïve, maybe. But he's honest. He's a good, decent boy, isn't he? Isn't he, my darling girl?" And then the coughing started up again, and I fled the room to fetch him some water. Roy arrived just minutes later.

My darling girl. Those were the last words he ever spoke to me. And as much as I feared him, as much as he hurt me, and as much as I wished he were affectionate and kind and gentle like other fathers, I cannot forget that the last thing my father called me was his darling girl.

* * *

She registers something warm and solid wrapped around her, and it's only then that she realizes she's been speaking aloud. And she is being held close against her superior officer, her nemesis, her father' s protégé, her best friend, the first boy she ever loved. The only man she's ever loved. And he's stroking her hair while she shakes in his arms, and she feels the wetness of her own tears on his shirt. She hadn't even known she'd been crying. Then his lips are pressed against her hair, her temple, her cheek… and suddenly the whole world just stops, and nothing is important except for the feel of his lips on hers. In between kisses he's telling her that he _knows_ her father loved her, that his final words had been a choked apology to his daughter and a desperate plea for Roy to look after her. In the fading light, he tilts her chin up so he can look in her eyes as he finally tells her how much he loves her, how he's always loved her, and how he's sorry for not doing a better job of taking care of her all these years. And now he is the one in need of reassuring whispers and carresses. Through tears of his own, he asks her whether she can forget everything else, just for tonight. Tonight, there are no ranks, no titles, and no damn politics and rules but just the two of them: just two people who have been in love for too many years to count and who deserve a moment of happiness now and then.

For once, she doesn't argue with him.

* * *

**A.N. Well that turned out...differently than I intended. However, it's related to another story I've been working on, which I'm not certain will ever see the light of day, so posting even this little blurb makes me feel a bit better about that. Anyway, feedback is very much welcomed and appreciated!**

**xoxo Janieshi**


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